A glass of coffee, a smartphone, keys, a bank card, headphones, glasses, lip balm, a bag from the store - women can easily hold all this in one hand. This is how the girl grip trend has gone viral on social networks, in which girls demonstrate an unusual skill to the world. At first, the videos were perceived as a harmless meme about female dexterity. But soon the joke about superpowers turned into a discussion of a much broader problem: functionality in women's wardrobes is still often not the norm, but a pleasant exception. Lenta.ru looked into how a comic flash mob revived debate about patriarchy.
What is girl grip?
Girl grip refers to the habit of holding multiple objects with one hand while the other hand remains free or occupied with the bag. In viral videos, girls collect the necessary little things almost into engineering structures: they put the phone on top of their wallet, they hold the keys with their fingers, they hold the glass with their palm, balancing glasses and cosmetics between other things.
Men also tried to participate in the trend: blogger Demi Schwers invited her husband Tom to repeat the girl grip, giving him about a dozen things. The man started with the keys, but immediately admitted that it was already difficult for him, and after two unsuccessful attempts he asked his wife to show how she holds all the objects at the same time.
In a similar video, Jake Cahun tried to emulate his wife Courtney's grip and almost succeeded, but was unable to add a bottle of perfumed body spray to his already collected items. Influencer Kennedy Peterson also showed her version: she held a fishing rod, a caught fish and a can of Diet Coke in her hands.
The trend is not limited to comic tricks. For some users, girl grip is a way to carry all the packages from the car at once; for mothers, it is the ability to hold a child with one hand without letting go of a phone, bottle, toys or keys with the other. The viral trend just gave a name to a skill that many have unknowingly honed over the years.
Even before the hashtag girl grip appeared on the Internet, there was a project called Girls Carrying Shit. Its authors publish photographs of women carrying coffee, books, bags, flowers, clothes, equipment and other small items in their hands, which are clearly not designed to hold them without a bag or spacious pockets.
The founder of the project, Hallie Robbe, said that the idea came to her from her own experience. According to her, the project quickly went beyond the usual humorous account and became a way to draw attention to an everyday situation that was familiar to women, but unfamiliar to men.
Pocket as a political issue
In the comments under posts about girl grip, users quickly move from jokes about dexterity to the question: why do women even have to carry everything they need in their hands? The most common answer is the lack of normal pockets. Or the pockets in women's clothing are so small that they don't even fit a phone.
Women remember skinny jeans with a low waist, the front pockets of which don’t even fit a wallet, as well as jackets and dresses with imitation pockets and jackets with decorative slits. Some users admit that they specifically buy trousers and jackets in men's departments so as not to carry a bag or backpack with them every day.
Fashion researchers note that built-in pockets in European men's clothing began to spread already at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, while women used tie pockets for a long time: they were worn under skirts and took things out through slits in outer clothing.
However, already in the 19th century, silhouettes changed: skirts became lighter and narrower, and separate pockets gradually gave way to small handbags. At the same time, men's clothing became more and more practical: they were sewn into spacious pockets for personal items.
Fashion researcher Hannah Carlson calls this problem the "patriarchy of pockets." In a conversation with CNN, she explained that the difference between men's and women's clothes was not only due to the features of the cut.
Historically, men's clothing was associated with work, movement and public life - therefore it included a place for money, documents and other personal items. Women's clothing was often expected primarily to conform to ideas about beauty and silhouette.
Even as women gained more freedom to work and move around, many of the industry's habits became ingrained. According to Carlson, the differences between men's and women's pockets in modern clothing reflect persistent gender inequalities.
Small pockets are a big problem
Journalists Jen Dim and Amber Thomas compared the pockets in 80 men's and women's jeans from 20 popular brands. The study found that the front pockets of women's models are on average 48 percent shorter and 6.5 percent narrower than men's.
In recent years, stores have seen an increase in cargo pants, loose-fitting jeans, work jackets and styles with deep pockets. However, the popularity of girl grip trends proves that for years women have been adapting to clothes that are not designed for their everyday life.
Women's items require an additional accessory to store everything they need. As a result, comfort, freedom of movement and practicality are secondary to appearance.
The same logic is noticeable in the range of clothes for girls. Parents and bloggers are paying attention to short shorts and other items that may be less comfortable for active play than similar items from boys' collections.
It turns out that the need to adapt to clothing begins in childhood, and in adulthood it manifests itself in such seemingly harmless things as girl grip.
And perhaps it is better not to reproduce this “superpower”, but to finally give women normal pockets.
